We're beginning to enter an era where it gets really cheap and really fast to begin to do things like make fuels, and make textiles, and make extra teeth for ourselves. And we're beginning to think about how we regrow our bladders.

One of the lessons that I hope people will take out is the extreme dependence simply on the financial sector is really dangerous.

It's such an extraordinary time to be alive that you just don't want to miss it. I mean, it's a really neat historical period.

When I grew up, I simply didn't have mentors that said, "Science is important. Science helps you build a country. Science makes a country powerful." And that's such a simple thought, but when you think about what's powered Taiwan and Korea and Silicon Valley and Cambridge.

There's a creativity, a power, an energy, an ability to do things unlike any other period in history. It's a little bit like sitting in the Renaissance, but multiplied a thousand-fold.

The difference between people who can read and write and those who can't is just absolutely astronomical.

Ask your friends how many stars will be in the U.S. flag in 50 years? And the reason why that's a reasonable question is because there has never been a President of the United States who's been buried under the same flag he was born under.